Capt. Freeman buried at the Naval Academy

Marine Corps Capt. Matthew Freeman of Richmond Hill who was killed in Afghanistan Aug. 7 was buried at the United States Naval Academy Aug. 26.

In a column titled "A Heroic Death, With the Headlines," published in the Washington Post Aug. 30, Ashley Hall III wrote:

"The morning he came back to the Naval Academy was a Wednesday, but it will stick in your memory as the day you heard that Ted Kennedy had died and that someone might have killed Michael Jackson. The politician and the entertainer of their generations, they were lionized by many and scorned by some. One pleaded guilty, the other was found innocent. But they each died with an indelible asterisk, a footnot to their legacies that time will not erase.

Matt Freeman died clean ...

...He did not live long enough to become the icon of Kennedy or Jackson, but he died the greater hero."